Mean Streets

Mean Streets was Martin Scorsese-s third feature film, and the one that confirmed him as a major new talent. On its premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1973, the critic Pauline Kael hailed the film as -a true original of our period, a triumph of personal film-making-. The tale of combative friends and small-time crooks is set amid the bars, pool halls, tenements and streets of Manhattan-s Little Italy. Scorsese has said of his childhood neighbourhood, -its very texture was interwoven with organised crime-, and this quality would dramatically inform the tone and restless energy of his seminal film.Demetrios Matheou-s insightful study considers Mean Streets- production history in the context of the New Hollywood period of American cinema, noting also the key roles played by John Cassavetes and Roger Corman. He analyses the importance of Scorsese-s background to the film-s characters and themes, including preoccupations with guilt, redemption and criminal subcultures;